Sympathy – Goo Goo Dolls

One of my favorite weeks of the year is going to this annual work conference hosted by the partner company I work with. They host it in a different city every July, so it ends up turning into a mini vacation for me. However, the first three conferences used to stress me out to a defcon 1 level, mostly because I am terrible remembering names AND faces. I KNOW. Not the kind of flaw you want to have when 80% of your job is relationship-driven. And so, there is always a handful of awkward interactions at these things, where I introduce myself and I am greeted with disappointing faces followed by the phrase that haunts me for weeks after, where they tell me, “Dianne, we have met three or four times before”. Doh. Anyways, so this year we were back in Boston and it’s towards the end of the second night, when I run into one of my favorite risk managers. He is warm, and unapologetically unique (I remembered his name after our first meeting). He introduced one of his coworkers along with her daughter, and I swear there must be something in the water in Oregon, because they are both just as warm and inviting as he is. They commented on my tattoo, and I noticed they were similarly adorned, and turns out they recently got matching ones. You could immediately tell how close they were. I smiled through the pain of that, hiding my jealousy. Elise has always been daddy’s little girl. My son, who used to be a mamma’s boy, is older now, and our dynamic has changed. His hugs are forced, and even though he says he loves me, these days, it is begrudgingly mumbled.

In any case, back to this woman – the next day, the actual conference started, and I am enjoying the session. Doug Flutie is talking about how short people overcome adversity, so I forgive the digs he makes towards New York teams. Shortly after, like any normal week, I get an urgent text from a broker to call, so I extricate. Turns out someone needs an urgent quote to go out, so there I am underwriting away, missing the guest speaker that apparently talked about the secret to happiness. Ironic, right? I must have had ten people come up to me later on that day who knows of my situation, telling me how good it was, and how they thought about me at some point wondering if anything resonated. Oh well, I think they gave us the person’s book, but it is in a bag of random swag we got that week that I have yet to unpack. Suddenly, the woman I met the previous night comes up to me. And yes, blame either the tiredness, the 4 days of alcohol, not enough food (unless you count the squares of Laderach chocolate I bought to snack away on and remember Zurich when coffee did not feel like enough), but I could not remember this woman’s name for the life of me. I apologized, and she graciously smiled. She talked about the secret to happiness speaker, which in turn morphed into this sweet conversation about daughters. Although they are close now, she explained how it was a long road. She reminded me that Elise was still young, but remarked that she was tough on her daughter in those early years to now, because she didn’t want her to grow up to be a princess. This struck a nerve. Elise wears her princess costume every chance she gets and it takes a lot of distraction to get her to change into normal clothes when I bring her to school. The woman explains it is because above all things she wanted her to grow up to be resilient. I told her mission accomplished she definitely seems that she is.

I am good with interacting with certain people on a one-on-one basis. I really love when I meet the right kind of people, that in a brief amount of time, you can have the kind of conversation that gets oddly deep and philosophical. I am introspective. I used to apologize for this, but as it turns out, I just may not have been interacting with the right kind of people. Maybe it is something about being older. I used to feel so sad when I could not connect with people, but now, I have realized that not everyone is worth my time and effort. Not everyone needs to see that part of me, so I save that effort for the people that are. I am not everyone’s cup of tea, so it is important to be more guarded, take my time, and get better at reading people.

The last day of the conference I walk into the first session. Hundreds of people, but I see the woman, and this time I DO remember her name. So we sit together and as we are chit chatting away, she remarks about how grateful she was for the week, to get away from home. Then she hits me with this bomb. It turns out her husband is dying, and already passed the doctor’s original timeframe expectations. She almost did not come, but she said felt God telling her that she and her daughter needed this temporary pause from the heaviness back home. I cried, but it was an emotional week, so those emotions were already pretty accessible. The session started, but I swear, who could concentrate on insurance at that point? I know everyone has got their crap to carry, but really its too much sometimes. It hurt even worse thinking about the previous night, about the warmth this family exuded. You would know have no idea that their world was falling apart. This woman was so worried about time they had left. So, I took one of the notepads in front of me and started scribbling away. It is not often, especially with my strained relationship with God, that I hear His voice, but I did or at least I think I did. I wrote this woman a letter that went something to the tune of this:

Dear __ ,

I know I am supposed to be paying attention to this speaker right now, but all I can think of is how sad I am that bad things always seem to happen to the nicest people. I am sitting here, praying for you, your husband and your daughter, and I hope you will forgive me, I just for some reason feel compelled to share this with you.

My dad died of a heart attack when I was 27, so around the same age as your daughter. There was very little warning and I was mad at God for a long time. My dad and I – we didn’t have enough time. He was probably the first, maybe only, man that truly loved me unconditionally, but he passed before I had my kids, and I just think something happens when you become a parent that brings the kind of clarity that really brings into focus all the decisions your parents made that as a child you resented, but it was just them trying they best they could without any kind of instruction manual.

I share this with you because it may not seem like it at this moment, but God has given you a gift, something I wish everyday He gave me. He is giving you the gift of time. Time to still make new memories, to say the things people agonize for years wishing they said, time to laugh, cry and everything in between. Time to still show that while life may fade, love endures.

I am glad that we met this week, and you made the decision to come here, as you stated you recognized that you needed to put on your oxygen mask before reaching out to help others. I will keep praying for your husband, for you and your daughter. Be well. -Dianne

Be kind to people. You never know what they are carrying.

This weekend I went to see Goo Goo Dolls, and he shared why he wrote this song, saying it’s about something we all need, but we should never ever have to ask for. This song is called Sympathy.  

“It’s hard to lead the life you choose (All I wanted),

When all your luck’s run out on you (All I wanted)

You can’t see when all your dreams are coming true”

August 4, 2025 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: family, life, love, mental-health, writing | Leave a comment